The Caged Lion eBook

Priors were not people to be kept waiting, and as
it was reported that the Tutor of Glenuskie was still
asleep, Lilias had to depart without taking leave
of him. With Malcolm the last words were spoken
while crossing the court. ’Fear not, Lily;
my heart will only weary till the Church owns me,
and Patie has you.’

’Nay, my Malcolm; mayhap, as the Prior tells
me, your strength and manhood will come in the south
country.’

‘Let them,’ said Malcolm; ‘I will
neither cheat the Church nor Patie.’

’It were no cheat. There never was any
compact. Patie is winning his fortune by his
own sword; he would scorn—­’

’Hush, Lily! When the King sees what a
weakling Sir James has brought him, he will be but
too glad to exchange Patie for me, and leave me safe
in these blessed walls.’

But here they were under the archway, and the convoy
of armed men, whom the exigencies of the time forced
the convent to maintain, were already mounted.
Sir James stood ready to assist the lady to her saddle,
and with one long earnest embrace the brother and
sister were parted, and Lilias rode away with the
Prior by her side, letting the tears flow quietly
down her cheeks in the darkness, and but half hearing
the long arguments by which good Father Akecliff was
proving to her that the decision was the best for
both Malcolm and herself.

By and by the dawn began to appear, the air of the
March night became sharper, and in the distance the
murmur and plash of the tide was heard. Then,
standing heavy and dark against the clear pale eastern
sky, there arose the dark mass of St. Ebba’s
monastery, the parent of Coldingham, standing on the
very verge of the cliff to which it has left the name
of St. Abb’s Head, upon ground which has since
been undermined by the waves, and has been devoured
by them. The sea, far below, calmly brightened
with the brightening sky, and reflected the morning
stars in a lucid track of light, strong enough to
make the lights glisten red in the convent windows.
Lilias was expected, was a frequent guest, and had
many friends there, and as the sweet sound of the
Lauds came from the chapel, and while she dismounted
in the court the concluding ‘Amen’ swelled
and died away, she, though no convent bird, felt herself
in a safe home and shelter under the wing of kind
Abbess Annabel Drummond, and only mourned that Malcolm,
so much tenderer and more shrinking than herself, should
be driven into the unknown world that he dreaded so
much more than she did.

CHAPTER III: HAL

The sun had not long been shining on the dark walls
of St. Ebba’s monastery, before the low-browed
gate of Coldingham Priory opened to let pass the guests
of the previous night. Malcolm had been kissed
and blessed by his guardian, and bidden to transfer
his dutiful obedience to his new protector; and somewhat
comforted by believing Sir David to be mending since
last night, he had rent himself away, and was riding
in the frosty morning air beside the kinsman who had
so strangely taken charge of him, and accompanied
by Sir James’s tall old Scottish squire, by the
English groom, and by Malcolm’s own servant,
Halbert.